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posted by chromas on Monday June 15 2020, @10:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the AOL dept.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/06/12/google-resumes-its-senseless-attack-on-the-url-bar-hides-full-addresses-on-chrome-canary/

Google has tried on and off for years to hide full URLs in Chrome's address bar, because apparently long web addresses are scary and evil. Despite the public backlash that came after every previous attempt, Google is pressing on with new plans to hide all parts of web addresses except the domain name.

A few new feature flags have appeared in Chrome's Dev and Canary channels (V85), which modify the appearance and behavior of web addresses in the address bar. The main flag is called "Omnibox UI Hide Steady-State URL Path, Query, and Ref" which hides everything in the current web address except the domain name. For example, "https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/06/07/lenovo-ideapad-flex-5-chromebook-review/" is simply displayed as "androidpolice.com."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @02:07PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @02:07PM (#1008128)

    Remember all the companies back in the 1990s attempting to become your "portal" to the internet? (Yahoo being a famous example?)
    That didn't work out so well once the search engines became good enough. All Google's efforts are just a different way for them to enhance their role as defacto portal for the internet. That's what AMP is about.

    Another way to see how Google's search engine acts as a portal that controls what you see is the damned "suggested search terms" that come up when you search. I entered my search criteria, now just search it, damn it! Google is trying to "nudge" you to what THEY want you to see.

    Another example of their control is when you search for anything that might be topical in the news. Google returns articles from just a few "woke" new sites or magazines. You get a definite left slant. Try entering the same search keywords in bing.com and you'll get results from a wide array of sites, left wing and right wing.

    If you search with Google, you're missing 3/4 of the internet.
    Google is no longer a SEARCH ENGINE; it has become a RECOMMENDATION ENGINE.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @05:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @05:42PM (#1008223)

    Exactly. This is only "senseless" if you're not Google. It's pretty obvious what's going on here.